Observations and reflections – no frills and pretension. ~开门见山~

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I wish there’s insurance for everything in life, except one.

They put a price you can pay to help receive some form of payback for damages on mortality, investments, body parts, holidays, houses, automobiles, etc. They want you to believe nothing in life is perfect, something will go wrong for almost anything you get yourself into. And they put a price on how much they will step in to help you move on or lessen the burden when Murphy’s Law works its magic on your life, making you an example of why insurance should be gotten by everyone else, because anything can happen and you should be prepared.

To a huge extent, they’re right, and they’ve covered almost everything, promising that your health will deteriorate affordably as you age, that you’ll rebuild your house that’s burned down without having you worry about where the money will come from, that your car will be returned to you gleaming new after you drop if over the cliff without you having to pay a single cent, that your family will get allowances should you die of an accident or any other reason…

I wish there’s an insurance on relationships. Only, I don’t want money when it doesn’t work out. I wish they return you understanding of what went wrong and courage to forget the pain move on with life. But this will never happen, and we all know it. Why do we even need it in the first place? Indulge me.

The core of my want:
I so want to believe in Happily ever after. I so want to ignore statistics and warnings. I so want to love and be loved by the same man for eternity, for whatever love encompasses in our context, without a shadow of a doubt. If I could have that, God is extremely kind to me, and I don’t mind doing whatever he asks me to in the afterlife, because allowing an ordinary soul like me to live my mortal life in positive ultimatum (again, in the context I define) is almost a sin.

We must get ourselves prepared for the worst in everything we get into so we won’t be lost when shit happens. I guess that’s the punchline for insurance.
When people get into serious relationships, do they prepare for the worst? Given Murphy’s Law, facts, statistics, history, etc, it’s getting increasingly hard to maintain a relationship for a lifetime in recent generations. Presented with these information, people start to plan for what comes after the present relationship. They don’t expect happy endings, because infidelity, divorce, crimes of passion, domestic abuse, prostitution, swingers communities etc are all on the rise.
Are we optimistic about lasting relationships? Not at all. In fact, a 5 year relationship before marriage is now considered eons as opposed to a 5 month courtship-dating-proposal-marriage package people plunge into these days. Divorce, a once social taboo, is now claiming 50% of all marriages, driving a new marketing segment of divorcees who are suddenly single & face long lists of domestic shopping to do. Divorce is suddenly a solution and not the end of your social status.

In the paragraph above, I failed to mention the emotional impacts of these issues. I hate prenuptial agreements, because they treat love like any other thing you can “cover” with a fleeting commodity. Just like how love can’t be bought, a person who falls hard out of love will always have an intangible but extremely real scar in them. Yet, I still believe romantic relationships and marriages shouldn’t be given a death sentence based on logical deductions, because love isn’t logical. Love isn’t measurable, nor warrantable. We can only try to learn from past relationships so we can love better in the next, knowing full well that we won’t ever forget how he/she kissed, a memory that stays well hidden for the good of everyone.

It’s hard to believe, in today’s context, that real romantic relationships can be somewhat unplanned, spontaneous, full of hope & passion AND can last a lifetime. But that shouldn’t stop people from wanting a relationship like that. It’s the hope that makes love so irresistable, tempting, exhilarating, satisfying, and yet, hurting & destructive especially when happily ever after seems impossible.

I was one of those who were afraid to be hurt. Now i think i understand that Newton’s law applies… “For every action (of love), there will be a reaction (that can be positive or negative)” — If you want happily ever after, which, to me is a rather extreme positive, you will have to make a bet and invest an extreme amount of hope that it will last. =)